


Mustache

by Truth



Category: Book of Life (2014)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:13:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mustache was Joaquín’s fault, naturally enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mustache

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coprime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coprime/gifts).



The mustache was Joaquín’s fault, naturally enough. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

The morning after a wedding, one would assume the newlyweds would arise late. Thus it was that Joaquín found himself blinking himself awake to the distinctive sound of a grumpy pig, and wondering why there was a pig in his bedroom.

The sight that greeted him was of María, perched on his windowsill, eating a bit of fruit against the sunrise. Her pet pig was dancing around her feet, demanding that she share. María, however, was ignoring Chuy in favour of watching Manolo rummage through the wardrobe.

Joaquín was generally an early riser, but last night’s dancing and celebrating and minor heartsickness had worn him out, and he pushed himself up onto his elbows as he attempted to figure out what, precisely, was going on.

Manolo was pulling out various items and holding them up for María’s inspection. As she indicated approval, or not, they were placed back in the wardrobe, or in a bag set on the floor.

“What… are you doing?”

María took a crunching bit of her fruit. “Packing! Good morning, Joaquín.”

Blinking at her, he considered this answer. “ _Why_?”

“Because we are going on a hon- adventure,” she informed him solemnly, but her eyes were dancing. “And of course, we couldn’t possibly have an _adventure_ without you.”

He squinted at her, attempting to make sense of the entire business. “You’re packing. For an adventure.” 

“We’re packing _you_ for an adventure,” Manolo retorted, coming up with a fancy uniform jacket and regarding it dubiously. “María thinks it will be fun.”

Joaquín frowned. “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

“Oh, I’m greatly looking forward to… to whatever this is.” Manolo rolled his eyes and dodged a thrown bit of roll that María flung at him. Chuy lunged forward and caught it, highly pleased with himself. “I’ve just _had_ an adventure! I was hoping for a little less chaos, not more.”

“This is why we need Joaquín,” María informed him, hopping down from her perch. “He’s the brave one.”

Still hazy with sleep, that simple phrase gave Joaquín pause. “Even after all…” he gestured. “All of _that_?”

She smiled at him, brightly. “You were always the sensible one,” ignoring Manolo’s choke of laughter. “You always supported my ideas, even when you tried to talk me out of them. Manolo is the dreamer… and a _terrible_ adventurer.”

Manolo shrugged, smiling and unwilling to dispute the accusation.

“So you’re taking me on an adventure?” Still sleepy and feeling as if he’d missed a crucial bit of information somewhere. “Now?”

“Well, they’re attractive pajamas, but I’d think you’d want to dress, first.” María moved to the side of his bed and reached over to gently press her finger against his nose. “I’ll fetch the horses.”

She departed, Chuy trotting importantly in her wake, leaving Joaquín staring after her, still sleepily confused.

“Don’t try to make sense of it,” was Manolo’s cheerful advice. He finished packing Joaquín’s bag and set it at the foot of the bed. “She woke me this morning to tell me that if the dead can return, maybe other old stories were true, and that we needed to investigate.”

“…that’s… not what I would’ve expected?” Joaquín blinked up at him. “I mean… you were _married_ last night. Shouldn’t you be… spending time together?”

Manolo actually grinned at him. “We _are_ \- and I’d hurry. María’s been packed since dawn.”

“But –“

“Hurry uuuup,” Manolo made the two words a song as he vanished through the door, leaving Joaquín alone and confused, with only a packed bag for company.

Being a third wheel would be… awkward, and embarrassing, and tinged with jealousy –

Which didn’t explain why he found himself at the wardrobe, rapidly dressing himself. He did feel awkward, and a little embarrassed… but that stab of desperate jealousy that he’d felt, knowing that María smiled so easily for Manolo, that they were _married_ -

\- entirely failed to appear.

**  
Two days later found them at the home of one of Manolo’s many, many distant cousins. Adjacent rooms were provided, though not without a side-eye for Joaquín’s presence, but he smiled and nodded his way through it, distributing autographs and telling wild, if entirely true, stories until everyone relaxed.

Still – something would have to be done. It wouldn’t do to have people talking about María and Manolo in less than a positive light.

Which leads us to the mustache.

“It’s a very fierce mustache,” he declared, glaring at Manolo, who had one hand over his mouth to hide a quavering smile.

“It is,” María agreed, peering at it intently. “Is it fierce enough?”

Joaquín kicked Manolo in the ankle, attempting to forestall whatever remark had been forthcoming. “Yes, yes it is.”

“You should try,” failing to conceal his mirth, “the hat.”

María and Joaquín aimed identical, disapproving scowls at Manolo. María’s scowl somewhat emphasized by the very fierce mustache affixed to her upper lip. The sight was enough to cause Manolo to lose his self control entirely. He wrapped both arms around himself and gave way to helpless laughter.

“Ignore him,” Joaquín told María frostily, putting an arm around her shoulders to turn her back to the mirror. “The hat will help to hide your hair and is essential to the entire disguise.”

María glared at Manolo’s chortling reflection, and turned back to staring at herself in the mirror. “This will work.”

“Of course it will.” Joaquín sniffed. “This is a brilliant plan.”

Manolo attempted a rebuttal, but it was lost in another bubble of laughter.

María scowled at her reflection, reaching for the sombrero that Joaquín had presented to her, along with the mustache. She carefully placed it atop her tightly wound hair as Joaquín draped a serape over her shoulders.

The simple disguise was surprisingly effective. María made a slender, but fairly believable man – an effect due almost entirely to the extreme fierceness of her false mustache.

“All she needs now,” Manolo chortled, “is an eyepatch.”

“And why not?” María coughed, forcing her voice into a comically low register. “It worked for your cousins.”

Manolo tactfully did not point out that his cousins were both beautiful women, and their fierceness had nothing at all to do with disguise of any sort. He did, however, manage to stop laughing. Eventually.

“This was a brilliant idea!” Joaquín was so very proud of himself, moving around María to examine the effect from all angles. “We’ll call you Miguel. You and I will be adventurers, and Manolo will sing of our many exploits!”

“There once was a man named Joaquín,  
Whose blade was unusually keen,   
He –“

“Manolo,” María turned to him, running one finger along her mustache and nearly causing him to choke on another burst of laughter. “Manolo. Stop that.”

“I can’t help it! This is all… it is like the beginning of a bad comedy!” Joaquín shot him a hurt look, and Manolo’s laughter faded. Slightly. “Surely you can see it.”

“It is a good idea,” Joaquín shot back, raising his chin with injured pride. “María is a married woman. It wouldn’t be proper for her to go adventuring with us,” with a sidelong glance at María’s sudden, narrow-eyed stare, “not that there’s anything wrong with her going adventuring, she is an amazing swordswoman, and her Kung Fu is amazing,” the last all coming out in one hasty breath, “but it would be far easier for us all if we looked like a party of three young men.”

María held her scowl.

“Sadly, he is right. There are many bandits who choose their victims by looking for a party with a woman – and we are looking for adventures, not combat.” Manolo sighed, moving to put an arm around María. “Adventures are for enjoyment, which bandits do not tend to bring in their wake.”

“That does not mean we should allow –“

“Joaquín,” turning María to look at him directly, instead of at his reflection in the mirror, “is still brave and heroic enough to take on an entire bandit army, but he is no longer invincible, my love.”

Joaquín had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “Well, that is –“

“Let’s not go looking for trouble.” Manolo kissed the edge of María’s mouth, just beneath her mustache. “It finds us easily enough as it is.”

María’s scowl had faded slightly. “I never _look_ for trouble –“

A matching pair of scoffing sounds brought her words to a halt, and her scowl back to full force.

“Aren’t you the young lady who wanted to investigate the stories of chupacabra?”

“Aren’t you the one who said she believed in people turning into coyotes and racing across the countryside?”

“Aren’t you –“

María raised her hands in exasperated defeat. “You may, _perhaps_ , have a point.” She turned back to glare darkly at her reflection. “It is a very good mustache.”

Joaquín slid an arm around María’s waist, pressing a kiss of his own to María’s cheek, accidentally getting the edge of her mustache in his eye. He bravely persevered, however, smiling at her reflection in the mirror. “It is, isn’t it?”

“That’s enough out of you both.” Manolo’s hand was covering another grin. “We have a long ride ahead of us, if we want to reach that goat farm before dark.”

María pulled away from Joaquín and moved across the room in what was supposed to be a manly swagger. It was Joaquín’s turn to hastily put his hand over his face, and pretend to cough.

She shot a dark look over her shoulder, and persevered. 

Manolo grinned openly at Joaquín, picking up his guitar and gesturing toward the door. “After you, oh master of disguise.”

“You laugh,” thrown over his shoulder as he followed María from the room, “but it will work.”

“I’m sure it will.” Manolo chuckled. “I’m sure it will.”

It wasn’t until they’d again reached their horses, ignoring the raised eyebrows from Manolo’s cousin, that Joaquín realized what he’d done – kissing María right in front of her new husband – on their _honeymoon_ no less. He turned a bright pink and concentrated on climbing on his horse.

It… wasn’t as if anyone had _objected_ , and he hadn’t really meant anything by it.

Had he?

Two days later, hanging upside down from a tall tree, frantically strumming his guitar as two small, furry creatures with a _lot_ of teeth stared happily up at him, Manolo attempted, vainly, to ignore the whispered fight in the tree above him.

_“This is your fault.”_

_“My fault? You’re the one who wanted to go chupacabra hunting.”_

_“You’re the one who didn’t realize that chupacabra are less interested in goats than in Maríachi.”_

_“Me? Well, you’re the one –“_

Gritting his teeth, Manolo hissed, “Stop fighting. You’re going to drop me, and then I will be _eaten_.”

There was a sudden, grim silence from above him, and the hold on his ankles wobbled, causing him to miss a note, and the furry, toothed creatures below to stop staring and start jumping up at him again.

“That’s _my_ Maríachi, you horrible little monsters!” 

As far as war cries went, it was hardly deathless prose, but Manolo appreciated it anyway. María, mustache and all, plummeted from the tree, her sword in one hand and Joaquín’s in the other.

Manolo stopped his guitar playing and he and Joaquín stared downward as María chased the chupacabra (or whatever they were) around and around the tree.

A dreamy sigh drifted down from where Joaquín was keeping Manolo securely out of reach by his grip on the other man’s ankles. “Isn’t she _amazing_?”

“Yes. Amazing. Wonderful. Fantastic.” Manolo’s voice was slightly strained. “Can we concentrate on getting out of the _tree_?”

“Oh. Right.”

Manolo narrowly escaped landing on one of the fleeing little monsters, and was forced to use his guitar like a cricket bat as the other went directly for his ankles – resulting in a high-pitched squeal as it went sailing away into the night.

“You could’ve waited until they were on the other side of the tree!”

Joaquín, still secure in his perch up the tree, merely grinned down at them both as María discarded one of the swords and managed to pick up a chittering creature by one long, pointed ear. “The view,” he declared, “is much better from up here.”

“You,” Manolo declared awfully, “are sleeping in the stables tonight.”

“María wouldn’t let you do that to me! María _likes_ me!”

“If you don’t get down here this instant,” as María dangled the small monster where Manolo could get a good look at it, “you can sleep in the tree.”

With a sigh, Joaquín dropped from the tree. “What is that thing, anyway?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” María held it carefully away as it chattered and growled and attempted to bite everything in sight. “We can turn it into the farmer for the reward and then find somewhere more comfortable than the stables for all three of us.”

“I don’t think there’s anywhere else out here,” Manolo offered, watching as Joaquín carefully and warily took over monster-carrying duties. “The town is miles away, and at this hour? I think the farmer’s stables are the only thing available.”

“And they wouldn’t let us do that with a beautiful woman,” Joaquín was practically glowing with triumph. “I _told_ you the mustache was a good idea.”

“ _You_ can sleep on the roof,” was Manolo’s smart retort. “ _I’m_ her husband.”

“Peace.” María smiled at them both as she retrieved the discarded sword. “We’ll share the stables – and maybe sleep after.”

Joaquín blinked at her, entirely nonplussed. He couldn’t possibly have heard that right. Too much time attempting to recapture the wild, happy exultation of their childhood adventures, too much time attempting to think of María as ‘one of the guys’ –

“I think you broke him.”

Joaquín blinked, coming to himself to find Manolo waving his hand gently before his eyes. “I… what?”

“Manolo,” María sighed, pulling off her mustache, and grimacing as it stuck to her lip before coming off. “You’re good with words. _You_ explain it to him.”

Manolo grinned widely, and didn’t say anything at all.

If Joaquín had found himself temporarily stymied by being unsure of his interpretation of María’s words, he found himself in a faint, confused haze that refused to properly clear.

_Manolo was kissing him._

Not the innocent kiss of childhood on a banged knee, or pressed gracelessly to a cheek to express affection – there was aggression, and hunger, and _tongues_.

“Now _you’ve_ broken him.” There was a hidden laugh in María’s voice. “Oh Joaquín. You didn’t think we invited you along simply for your amazing ability to strike a pose in _every_ situation, did you?”

Manolo cheerfully turned a somewhat stiff and rapidly blinking Joaquín toward María, who pressed an equally enthusiastic kiss on him.

“You can be amazingly dense,” was Manolo’s comment, breathed against Joaquín’s ear. “No retreat –“

“All _kinds_ of surrender,” was María’s gleeful response. “Come along, Joaquín. No one’s going to separate us again. _I’ll_ see to that.”

“But –“

“If that’s some sort of ridiculous commentary on the traditional state of marriage, or some paranoid declaration that you don’t also love Manolo to the very bottom of your heart, I am going to be _very_ cross.” There was a definite growl to María’s normally dulcet tones.

Joaquín blinked at her, still attempting to pull himself together. “You _planned _this,” he blurted. “All of it!”__

__“Well, I didn’t mean for Manolo to almost become someone’s dinner,” she admitted reluctantly. “But – yes.”_ _

__“That’s _greedy_!” Joaquín wasn’t even sure what he meant by that, but he was certain he should be indignant. For some reason. Possibly on Manolo’s behalf. _ _

__María rolled her eyes at him, pressing her mustache again beneath her nose. “Why? I love Manolo. I love you too. Manolo loves you – and you were willing to _die_ for him. What’s wrong with having _all_ the people you love?”_ _

__Joaquín really couldn’t come up with a coherent response for that, especially not with Manolo laughing softly in his ear. In truth, there wasn’t a single argument he could come up with, not that he really _wanted_ to argue._ _

__Manolo bit gently at his ear before releasing him. “That’s settled, then.”_ _

__“So.” María hefted the mildly indignant looking ‘chupacabra’ by the scruff of its neck. “Let’s turn this in for the reward… and discuss this somewhere more comfortable.”_ _

__“Stables are not meant to be comfortable,” Joaquín managed, pleased he’d managed any response at all._ _

__María’s smile widened. “We’ll just see about that.”_ _


End file.
